Cursed
by Walelu
Summary: Centuries he's roamed the earth, doing as he pleases. Hes intelligent, cunning, and more evil than most could imagine. But when he's cursed by a country's personification during the American Revolutionary War, he tries to survive until, about 240 years later, with his mental state near shattered, he begins a carefully planned endgame.
1. The Dude France Didn't Kill

The American Revolutionary War. A time of great unrest in the New World. People from many different countries were fighting on the ground. One specific Hessian had a secret. He was hundreds of years old. He wasn't a nation though, that would be too simple.

No, what he was, was much, much darker than that. An ancient dark magic, first used by an empire erased from history, now used by true witches, the kind that should have been burned, but were too smart to be found out. The blood of infants, the younger the better, kept him at a steady youthful appearance, looking around his late twenties.

How he found himself in the end era of colonial America was simple enough, he had to disappear. The royals were onto him, and while some sought him out to share his secret, others were revolted by what they'd found. For his own safety, he needed to vanish. So, in the hubbub of a war, was the perfect place to find himself.

And oh, the number of unwatched children running around, while not nearly as many infants, their blood worked almost as well. And though he left weeping mothers in his wake, there wasn't much they could do in the middle of a war.

He was out walking one day, when he came upon a Frenchman, looking rather colonial in dress. They were out in the boonies, nothing but fallow farmland surrounding them, and the weather was cooling down, it was evening near the end of the fall.

They both stopped, going opposite directions, and surveyed each other. Both men squinted.

"A hessian." The Frenchman observed.

"an ancient."

The Frenchman recognized the name instantly, "it seems you know more of me than most." The Frenchman, of more accurately, France himself, shifted his weigh to his right, not reaching to his sword, or his gun, but not quite relaxed either, "how did you learn of the ancients' existences?"

"by prolonging my own." The Hessian smiled, his teeth, his incisors, artificially sharpened, and managed to look more menacing than anything the natural immortal had seen in a long time.

Francis did draw his sword then, frowning, "So you've learned the forbidden arts?" he lowered the sword to level with the other man's chest, "what year?" his tone was dangerous, and though some hair fell into his face, Francis didn't waver.

"692."

"I assume you mean AD."

The Hessian looked surprised for once, "why would that-"

"My first memory is in early 700," Francis paused, "BC." He shifted his sword slightly, "So, what keeps me from cutting you down right now?"

"the demons I'm contracted with."

"they'll throw you away when they're done with you."

"I'm aware." He smiled, "but you should be aware of what they can do to you."

"I'm a Catholic, a man of God."

"but you're an immortal, sensitive to the world of spirits."

"I should cut you down."

"but you won't"

"I know." Francis lowered his sword, "I do however curse, you; the Celts of today come from my ancient people, I still bear their magic."

"What curse could you possibly place on me?"

"Any who descend of you, their bloodlines will be strife with illness, unless the blood of the creator covers them. I curse you to roam the earth, and be easily markable to my kind. I curse you with the mark of evil so the spirits of any area will hence forth run you out."

"I'm so scared." The man mocked, but Francis was already sheathing his sword.

"You'll wish for death, but now, only my kind can give it to you. With just a word. But by this curse, only our blood can bring youth to your life. The blood of human children will no longer work on you." Francis was already walking away, "do not try." He said those last three words slowly, at full annunciation. The sun was down now, and he needed to continue on his way to the Canadian border.

"How do I know you're not bluffing!?" the Hessian was yelling, but already the curse was working, he now could see the spirits of the land, even those that Francis couldn't, and they were noticing him. "Hey, wait!" He stepped in Francis' direction, "you can't do this!"

"It's already done." Francis called back, but didn't turn around, "good luck finding someone willing to lift the curse, and not flat out kill you."

"Who are you?"

Francis didn't respond, and nearly two-hundred-forty years later, he had almost completely forgotten the event.


	2. Of Doctors and Snoopers

Alfred Jones was in a tizzy. Well not a complete tizzy, it was actually just a minor rush. Deep down he knew he should've rescheduled that doctor's appointment, especially when he realized it was the day after he got back from Europe. So, jet lag. Now he was looking for the keys to his old beat up truck.

Finally, he found them in the fridge next to the coffee creamer, further proof that he was a grade a disaster. He grabbed them, and his registration sticker that he just remembered he needed to put on his license plate before a cop pulled him over, and practically flew out the door. When he'd lived in California, he'd been adamant about locking his door, but since going to Tennessee, he'd become laxer about it. He lived in the boonies, it wasn't like people came own the road often, much less looking to rob someone.

It was a combination of those two things that was the reason he forgot to look his front door that day. The only reason he even realized he had an appointment was because he looked at the colander he's made at the beginning of the month. He'd been planning on starting a garden today…

Oh well, he had thrown food at his chickens, yes, he had those, and promptly begun getting ready. Now he was driving down a deserted road, stopping at deserted stop signs when he became aware of something attached to his belt.

Shit.

At another stop sign, he made quick work to take off his holster and revolver and throw them in his lockable glove box. Then he continued on his way to the doctor's office.

He rushed in and to the front desk, "uh," he put his hands on the counter slightly, nervously leaning against it, though he was tall so he also ended slightly leaning over it, "I have an appointment?"

"Hello, yes, we have a new digital sign in," the nice young woman pointed to a strange machine in the corner, "if you could please sign in with that, then we have some paperwork for you to fill out."

Alfred stared at the sign in machine, "uh, okay." He made his way apprehensively over to it, and read the screen.

'tap screen to begin.'

So, he did.

'please enter your name'

That was simple enough…

'please enter your age.'

Okay,

'thank you'

Seriously? They needed a machine for that? AL stared at it a moment before shaking his head slightly, and collecting his paperwork from the woman. He sat down next to an older lady, and pointed to the machine,

"needlessly confusing, am I right?"

The older woman laughed, "Oh yes dear, took me ten minutes to figure out I had to touch the actual screen!" Al smiled at her and began his paperwork.

0o0

"So, Alfred Jones, nineteen years old, in for your yearly?"

Al sat on the uncomfortable examination bed-thing, and made eye contact with the old man, and by old Al could've sworn he was ancient- and upon squinting his eyes and not only looking at the man's aura, but also his citizen information, he realized the man wasn't actually an American citizen. Strange.

"Oh," he's forgotten he'd been asked a question, "Yeah, first one out here."

"where do you usually go?"

"a small place in California."

"ah, a communism escapee?"

"uh, something like that…" In truth, the federal government had asked him to move, as the payment for his trips all the way across the country and back, were getting costly, even in economy class. But he wasn't going to move into DC so he chose somewhere as far away as they would allow.

"Well, I'm very glad you decided to come to my practice," he squinted at the papers, "though I see you work for the government? T nineteen?"

"Yeah, you'll be briefed on that later..." AL waved a hand, "sorry I forgot to tell you beforehand," Oh no, its perfectly fine, the man kept leafing through his file, "you've a call on taking blood?"

"Sorry?"

"your file says you get blood drawn with every checkup?"

"oh, yeah."

"If I might inquire on why?"

"that'll be in your briefing," Al smiled apologetically, "sorry."

And the rest of the checkup went similarly, most of the day did actually, Al ran a few errands since he was out and about, before returning home to find his front door slightly ajar.

He stared at his door for a minute before opening his glove box. With his revolver pointed down, he went through his front door, through his whole house, then out and around his land, his dog joining him a moment later, trotting around behind him. when he came back into his house, he went straight into his office.

His desk was in shambles, papers strewn everywhere.

Al stared at it, before slipping out his cell phone and dialing a number, "Hi this is Exemplar, I would like to be patched straight through."

And he was, "state your Identification,"

"1050AFJ."

There was a pause, then: "Approved, please hold." Another pause, this time longer, "America? What do you need?"

"Some agents to come down and look through my papers, someone broke in and turned my desk upside-down."

"they'll be out there by this evening."

"Okay, thank you." The person on the other end of the line broke contact and Alfred was mostly fine with that, opting to put away his cell after turning it off.

His dog had stayed in the kitchen, but his cat came out of wherever his cat hat been, and jumped up onto the desk, further scattering his papers, "Hey wait! Nuhyah!" he yelled his cat's name and lunged to get it before it could lay waste t the ruins of his desk.


	3. An In-Depth Internet Search

He'd studied for centuries, centuries upon centuries. He was not a dumb man. He knew way back when that the idea of Miasma was absurd. But he hadn't had anything else to substitute it with. And the idea that blood was bad? Dumbest thing ever.

But that was the past and this was the present, and he was unlicensed but had more knowledge about modern medicine than any doctor in the world, except maybe the ones that use both eastern and western medicine, but this was America and if you did that then the FDA would breath down your neck wondering why you weren't just prescribing people pills.

He wasn't licensed, and he wasn't officially a doctor either. But he did spend a lot of time on the internet in chatrooms masquerading as a doctor. Especially the ones you used a tor network to get to.

That's how he came upon it, a doctor telling a strange story about how a nineteen-year-old came in the other day, claiming he worked high up in the government. He'd just humored the boy, he said, but it got weird when, just as he was closing up his office for the night, three men dressed all in black came in and briefed him on his patient. That was as deep as the man would go, but it was enough for this artificial ancient.

Since the curse more than two hundred years ago, he had aged slowly, but would not die. Otherwise he aged normally. It was horrifying, in his eyes, as he felt his eternal youth drain away. He was at his wits end, and finally hearing a surfacing of information about what might be the American personification, was relieving on hundreds of levels.

So, he did what he knew he had to. he checked if this anonymous person was using a tor. He wasn't, so the man, who was once a Hessian, so long ago, did as those who are in desperate need of private information do, and went off down the internet rabbit hole, and onto this person's private computer.

Carefully he searched through the files, until e found a convenient list of the man's patients for the day. Only one nineteen-year-old was on the list. Alfred F Jones. Quickly, the man began a deep search of the name.

He was unsurprised at what he found. Records going back to the early colonial era, even some in England. He had found a nation. Purely by accident, it seems. And that nation was just calmly living his life in a forgotten state of the third biggest country in the world.

Go figure. So, he put out feelers in the cult he'd amassed.

Sure, he wasn't a doctor, but when you provably can't die, people do tend to either freak out, follow you unconditionally, or both.

Turned out, someone knew of a friend of theirs, who'd gone off down to the boonies in Tennessee and impulse broken into a dude's house, but found weird government papers and assumed he was being videotaped and the house had high security, so he ran.

From there it was a short just to the friend, who was able to give him an address.

And that, my friends, is why you always lock your door when you leave.

* * *

A/N: thank you for the reviews! I thoroughly enjoyed them!


	4. Almost Filler

Nothing was taken. Nothing classified was even in Al's home. Just fancy government paperwork that was pretty much the equivalent to public school busy work that teachers leave for substitutes to hand out. The secret service did their work and left in quick time, leaving Al to go about his normal nighttime routine.

Albeit with a bit more paranoia than usual. Currently his was sitting on his couch in pajama pants and an old t-shirt, eating popcorn, with his handgun on the coffee table in front of him. His dog was asleep on the couch besides him, and his cat was off being a cat.

He was currently looking through Twitter, wasting the night away on his phone. At least he was, until it started ringing in his hand. He lowered the volume on the television, and answered the call.

"Yo Mattie, you realize its like 1am, right?"

"Yeah, sorry about that, I just wanted to know what the weather was like for when I come down next week…"

"At one in the morning?"

"I knew you'd be awake anyways."

"True…" Al checked the weather before getting back to his brother, "it should be chilly but like, not Canada chilly."

"Which means…?"

"like Northern Canada in the summer."

"so, 25 degrees?"

"Holy shit! No not that cold I was thinking like 60 degrees is it really that cold up there in the summer?" there was silence on Matthew's end, until Alfred realized, "wait."

"Every time Al, it's like some horrifying running gag."

"Yeah, but its not entirely my fault you guys tell temperature on water. I focus on how it affects people."

"That is not a new argument."

"It's a good one though."

"Sure, it is…" they both sat in a comfortable silence for a second before saying their good byes and hanging up.

Al shifted to laying down on the couch, his legs resting on top of his dog, who woke up and stared at him for an awkward amount of time, before going back to sleep.

In a week, his brother would be coming, so it was best he actually got some kind of sleep schedule going…


End file.
